On the 26th of June, the National Alliance of HUD Tenants(NAHT) intended to stage a rally at the MLK Memorial, only to be blocked by park rangers from passing the stone entrance. They were there to do the same kind of work on housing that Martin Luther King did, yet were prohibited from entering his memorial.

NAHT was there to promote the "Budget for all," a counterproposal to the "Ryan Budget" that masssively cuts housing programs and almost all other social programs. Tearing down funding for public housing leads to tearing down public housing, but that's just fine with the developers and racists who want poor people and people of color OUT of the cities.

They keynote speaker at the rally was Rep Mike Honda (D-CA), author of the Budget for All.

A lot of speakers at the rally emphasized voting,which of course can change nothing in the many cases where the Dem and GOP candidates do the same thing, like war and torture. Housing programs, however, are something the GOP in particular has been trying to kill in Congress for years.

Not directly mentioned at the rally but also relevant to their focus on votes and voter registration is the GOP war on the Voting Rights Act. Faux and other mainstream media talk a lot of the attempts to hold Eric Holder and the Department of Justice in contempt over the AFF gunrunning scandal. What they won't tell you is that this is widely suspected of being a GOP counterattack against use of the Voting Rights Act to overturn voter ID laws. Voter ID laws appear only in GOP dominated legislatures, as people without ID cards tend to be poorer and more often of color than those with ID, thus skew very strongly against the GOP.